Deliberate Learning Through The Lens Of Exercise

I came across this quote in a brilliant article from INC. The article focuses on the practice of deliberate learning or the ‘Five-Hour Rule’, where you intentionally set aside, at minimum, an hour a day for reading, thinking or experimenting. However whimsical this idea may sound some of the most successful entrepreneurs in our time are devout followers. Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates and Mark Cuban are only the top three names on the list.

What resonated most with me from the article was the analogy that we should look at the Five-Hour Rule the same way we look at exercise.

Rather than unsustainably pumping it out in the gym for hours at a time, the thinking is that finding a balance that can be easily maintained whilst fostering continued improvement is the best route to long term success. The Five-Hour Rule fits perfectly into this thinking:

Just as we have minimum [daily] recommended dosages of vitamins and steps per day and of aerobic exercise for leading a healthy life physically, we should be more rigorous about how we as an information society think about the minimum doses of deliberate learning for leading a healthy life economically.

The full article is roughly a 6 minute read, but well worth it. For a while now I have dedicated an hour of my day (ususally around lunch time, so I can eat whilst I read. I call it dual consumption of knowledge and nutrition!). This time is blocked off in my calendar and I do my level best to not sacrifice it. In the cases where I don’t manage to put in the time it, I make it up in a different time slot.